Tag: humans

God really is the answer:

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Peace, harmony, and righteousness can only happen through submission, forgiveness, and humility at the cost of control, fairness and honor. As humans we crave and fight for control, fairness and honor to get peace, harmony and righteousness. Often this fight is couched in the terms of fairness or equality. God pursues peace, harmony and righteousness through submission, forgiveness, and humility. We demand our rights, God gave them up.

Equal and Distinct
Father, Son and Spirit are co-equal and co-eternal, yet they do not function that way. They are equally God, equally in power, equal in their knowledge, ability: they are God, and they are one. The mystery shouldn’t be all that difficult except for our distaste for one word: Submission.

We hate submission because we crave control. We hate submission because we crave and push for our equality. In various discussions on equality, I wonder how people can push for their equality and at the same time fully claim pursuing Christ? In such a pursuit, one is pursuing a right that Christ did not pursue. Christ submitted.

There can be no harmony without submission. I am not addressing one area, but this concept holds true for marriages, teacher-student relationships, teams, organizations, etc. Our demanding equality often comes at the cost of harmony.

Fair or Grace
Fair is Hell. Life is not fair. We so demand fairness, but it constantly alludes us. Good people can make stupid choices, while evil people succeed. It makes no sense, it is not fair. Viewed another way, was it fair to God for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree? Was it fair for Cain to kill Abel, even after God warned Cain not to? Is it fair to execute a perfectly just man?

We scream at (or ignore) God because being who He is, He allowed unfair things to happen. Some even think God gains some sick pleasure at watching people suffer. Does He? No and in turn gives graces. Grace and mercy are not fair. God would have been perfectly fair in destroying existence after the fall. He didn’t. God did what we value above nearly all virtues, He did not give up. God did not reject people, people reject God. As we demand, so often, fairness from God, we look in the mirror and find we, again so often, are not fair towards Him.

Grace, Mercy and Reconciliation by their very nature are not fair. You and I may wonder why God is taking so long to make things right, we must remember something: In waiting God gave you and I opportunity to reconcile with Him. The only fair thing is for all to suffer. God waits desiring non to suffer. God did what was most unfair: He forgave, He provided a way out by accepting what He most loathes and cannot tolerate.

Two conclusions:
1) It seems to me the total of human History is God proving without Him there is only pain, suffering and chaos.  After all our efforts, we cannot escape our own depravity. Put ourselves in God’s shoes: If we wanted to create something and have a relationship with it, but at the same time wanted to give our creation freedom of choice, would we allow the chance of rejection? If we didn’t, did we truly give freedom of choice? If rejected, what would our actions be? What would the result of our creation be?

2) We want all the goodness of God without the accountability. The greatest ‘crime’ for man to accept God’s existence is the accountability that results from it. For the God of the Bible to exist, there then also exits an external standard we are accountable to. We run from accountability because it destroys another thing we humans desperately crave: control. Ironic that God in creation gave up control and gave us choice.

The Bottom line:
Perhaps the Biblical God is right after all. Humans abuse religion in the name of God, government in the name of justice, and reason in the name of science. We cannot escape that we have a soul, that we are depraved, and that all our progress leaves us in the same plight. We really do want peace, harmony and righteousness. We just love control, fairness and honor more. Interesting Jesus’ words: “He who desires his life shall lose it” and “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

We are more human than enlightened

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As modern man, we became more arrogant than enlightened. The rapid expanse of secularism has resulted in a false sense of enlightenment. We have not escaped the questions, cravings or issues of all history. Rather than view prior humans as primitive, we should view ourselves in the same plight as ancestors past.

Created or Evolved:
We’re the pinnacle of life.

Given our language, technology and care (or lack) of the Earth, we stand as truly unique in all life. Regardless of our view on origins, we are more developed than other forms of creation. We care for our own, help those who cannot help themselves, and our communication is vastly complex. Perhaps we’re here to take care of life?

Theism o-?-r Atheism:
We seek our end, our beginning and our meaning of life.

The entirety of human history is filled with pursuing answers, forceful neglect or running away from these questions. While our knowledge of nature is better, the conversations about these questions remain just about the same. We crave knowing, repress that craving, or try as might to ignore it. Have we came any closer to an answer, or do we merely recycle ones of old?

Good or Depraved:
We crave justice and our own rights, while getting frustrated when they are thwarted.

Despite our view of man, whether naturally good, blank or depraved, we act unjustly and get frustrated with injustice. While each person’s view of right and wrong may be different, we have it. Regardless of a person’s birth, we all crave our sense of justice, violate our own sense of justice, and cringe at injustice. From a do nothing approach to tyrannical rule, we cannot escape this struggle. Despite technology, education, culture, time, history we cannot escape this. Have we really improved?

Absolute Truth or No Absolute Truth:
We crave our own pleasure and get confounded at its disruption.

There are three things that we crave: Pleasure, control, and autonomy. In the pursuit of these things we have little tolerance for accountability and authority. Good, blank or depraved, do we not rebel against our authorities, especially as children? A friend of mine stated that “non-absolute truth ends at math.” While another said “absolute truth can be tyrannical.” The discussion on truth seems more rooted in the things we crave. Perhaps the origination of the discussion comes from what makes us most human: we are finite and mortal. In searching for objective, verifiable truth we are still left with our own interpretation and bias. Can any person claim absolute knowledge?

The bottom line:
Biological Machine or Soul

In our modern claims of evolved or enlightened, I think we are we’re just human like those before us. Have we really become more evolved or more enlightened?

The greatest crime of our age is not in becoming secular but ignoring something understood throughout our prior history as humans: We have a soul. For sure religion has been abusive, used for control, domination and an excuse of injustice. But, religion is not a disease, its pursuits not primitive, nor its conclusions trite.

Religion tyrannically ruled over the soul, but secularism tyrannically neglected it. Different, but equally a crime. We still struggle with the same questions, cravings and issues of all history. Secularism leaves humans with more emptiness than a true sense of fulfillment or yearning rather than answers. Claims of progress also have claims of the regression. In ending diseases, we also have the holocaust. In industrial progress, we have environmental destruction. In the development of equality, we have the destruction of the family and loss of identity.

With the current discussions of being spiritual or the re-discovery of human talent, perhaps we are re-discovering our soul. There is significant tension between the soul, reason and justice. One to the detriment of the others is the wrong approach. That approach seems, after all, what we all have in common. We are just as human as those of history. Maybe more knowledgeable, but not more enlightened.

God is not stupid

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I understand the plight to focus on essentials and not have a hostile environment when it comes to theology or the deep questions of life. In these conversations I cannot help but sense an eerie feeling. Do we think God is stupid and or modern man is evolved and enlightened?

Creation:
Instead of creation described poetically, what if God poetically created?

The creation account is written poetically. Days 1-3 God creates spaces and Days 4-6 He fills them. Upon completion God creates rest on the 7th days, and hence our week. The debate over creation vs evolution within Christianity will likely not go away, and should always be congenial. I have to ask, why can’t God poetically create?

While we may not like the way some defend the young Earth view, creationists do show plausibility of a young Earth and catastrophism. Are all discussions sound, bulletproof and complete? No. Neither is evolutionary thinking, which has changed demonstrably since its inception. Early humans maybe naïve, but I don’t think God created humans as intellectually inept. Why do we often view earlier humans as incapable of clear or deep thought? Who is to say that God created in the way He did for no other reason than the discussions about origins today?

Bible:
If an all-etc being, can He not communicate both timelessly, accurately, and use man at the same time?

We act based on what we believe. I wonder if we truly believe God is all-powerful or all-knowing. I mention this because we don’t seem to apply that to the Bible. Why can’t God use fallen man to communicate accurately and sufficiently?

Words and language move people. How many movements start based on an idea? Putting ourselves in God’s shoes, if we wanted to communicate who we are with clarity, how would we do it? Based on history, it seems we prefer to write things down: narratively, poetically, playfully. We learn best through narrative, it gives context, tone, color, and a depth mere bullet points or technical writing cannot. Are not the best story tellers those who are both cunning and correct and the greatest of these stories true?

Grace:
Isn’t freedom of choice as much an act of grace as freedom from consequences?

In hard times we yell at God, asking why He could allow bad things to happen. He could have stopped tyranny, death, destruction, but He has not…yet. While Naive, knowing neither good nor evil, God gave Adam the ability of choice, much like a parent knowing what the outcome will be. There was revealed, demonstrable and verifiable evidence of God’s existence, and yet Adam chose pride. Would we do better?

We often think of grace covering the consequences of our actions, but grace also covers our choices. Even in good times we often forget where they come from or worse that we are deserving of them. God hates sin, but yet he allowed people to sin and create the mess we’re in today. Do we not value our freedom above all else?

Rights:
Why does pursuing our rights lead to so much frustration?

Over the course of human history we, both big and small, pushed for our rights. Wars and quarrels, pain and suffering resulted and resound over rights. We either vocally or deep down demand them. We feel entitled to them. We blame God for allowing the violation of them. If He is love and peace, then why…?

I sense we wish God was more like us. Maybe we should reverse that and look at how He wants us to be more like Him? God has the right to wipe us all out, but He patient. God has the right to shun accusations or anger towards Him, but He listens. God has the right of full worship, yet He came humbly and unjustly executed as a criminal. God has the right to make us all puppets, but He gave us a choice. Maybe the answer to much of our suffering isn’t for God to be like us, but for us to be like Him?

The bottom line:
God is not stupid. When discussing the deeper questions of life and theology, we must not forget that. Human depravity and naïvety is a variable, but truth and God are a constant. If God is truly who He claims to be, then perhaps He overcame people’s problems while still choosing to communicate through them. We may not like or understand how or why God chose the path He did, but we should remember that God is God and we are not.